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20 untranslatable words

(via matadornetwork) "There are at least 250,000 words in the English language. However, to think that English – or any language – could hold enough expression to convey the entirety of the human experience is as arrogant of an assumption as it is naive.

Here are a few examples of instances where other languages have found the right word and English simply falls speechless.

1. Toska Russian – Vladmir Nabokov describes it best: “No single word in English renders all the shades of toska. At its deepest and most painful, it is a sensation of great spiritual anguish, often without any specific cause. At less morbid levels it is a dull ache of the soul, a longing with nothing to long for, a sick pining, a vague restlessness, mental throes, yearning. In particular cases it may be the desire for somebody of something specific, nostalgia, love-sickness. At the lowest level it grades into ennui, boredom.”

2. Mamihlapinatapei Yagan (indigenous language of Tierra del Fuego) – “the wordless, yet meaningful look shared by two people who both desire to initiate something but are both reluctant to start”

3. Jayus Indonesian – “A joke so poorly told and so unfunny that one cannot help but laugh”

4. Iktsuarpok Inuit – “To go outside to check if anyone is coming.”

5. Litost Czech – Milan Kundera, author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being, remarked that “As for the meaning of this word, I have looked in vain in other languages for an equivalent, though I find it difficult to imagine how anyone can understand the human soul without it.” The closest definition is a state of agony and torment created by the sudden sight of one’s own misery.

6. Kyoikumama Japanese – “A mother who relentlessly pushes her children toward academic achievement”

7. Tartle Scottish – The act of hestitating while introducing someone because you’ve forgotten their name.

8. Ilunga Tshiluba (Southwest Congo) – A word famous for its untranslatability, most professional translators pinpoint it as the stature of a person “who is ready to forgive and forget any first abuse, tolerate it the second time, but never forgive nor tolerate on the third offense.”

9. Prozvonit Czech – This word means to call a mobile phone and let it ring once so that the other person will call back, saving the first caller money. In Spanish, the phrase for this is “Dar un toque,” or, “To give a touch.”

10. Cafuné Brazilian Portuguese – “The act of tenderly running one’s fingers through someone’s hair.”

11. Schadenfreude German – Quite famous for its meaning that somehow other languages neglected to recognize, this refers to the feeling of pleasure derived by seeing another’s misfortune. I guess “America’s Funniest Moments of Schadenfreude” just didn’t have the same ring to it.

12. Torschlusspanik German – Translated literally, this word means “gate-closing panic,” but its contextual meaning refers to “the fear of diminishing opportunities as one ages.”

13. Wabi-Sabi Japanese – Much has been written on this Japanese concept, but in a sentence, one might be able to understand it as “a way of living that focuses on finding beauty within the imperfections of life and accepting peacefully the natural cycle of growth and decay.”

14. Dépaysement French – The feeling that comes from not being in one’s home country.

15. Tingo Pascuense (Easter Island) – Hopefully this isn’t a word you’d need often: “the act of taking objects one desires from the house of a friend by gradually borrowing all of them.”

16. Hyggelig Danish – Its “literal” translation into English gives connotations of a warm, friendly, cozy demeanor, but it’s unlikely that these words truly capture the essence of a hyggelig; it’s likely something that must be experienced to be known. I think of good friends, cold beer, and a warm fire.

17. L’appel du vide French – “The call of the void” is this French expression’s literal translation, but more significantly it’s used to describe the instinctive urge to jump from high places.

18. Ya’aburnee Arabic – Both morbid and beautiful at once, this incantatory word means “You bury me,” a declaration of one’s hope that they’ll die before another person because of how difficult it would be to live without them.

19. Duende Spanish – While originally used to describe a mythical, spritelike entity that possesses humans and creates the feeling of awe of one’s surroundings in nature, its meaning has transitioned into referring to “the mysterious power that a work of art has to deeply move a person.” There’s actually a nightclub in the town of La Linea de la Concepcion, where I teach, named after this word.

20. Saudade Portuguese – One of the most beautiful of all words, translatable or not, this word “refers to the feeling of longing for something or someone that you love and which is lost.” Fado music, a type of mournful singing, relates to saudade.

For myself, the hardest part about learning a new language isn’t so much getting acquainted with the translations of vocabulary and different grammatical forms and bases, but developing an inner reflex that responds to words’ texture, not their translated “ingredients”. When you hear the word “criminal” you don’t think of “one who commits acts outside the law,” but rather the feeling and mental imagery that comes with that word.

Thus these words, while standing out due to our inability to find an equivalent word in out own language, should not be appreciated for our own words that we try to use to describe them, but for their own taste and texture. Understanding these words should be like eating the best slab of smoked barbequeued ribs: the enjoyment doesn’t come from knowing what the cook put in the sauce or the seasoning, but from the full experience that can only be created by time and emotion."

UncategorizedJack Dysonlanguage, translation, untranslatable, words Comment
Music break - modern all-star jazz

On 12 May, Mos Def and Ben Jaffe got together to write a song for Gulf Aid, a benefit fund for those affected by the oil spill. In an all-night jam session, they recorded this musical collaboration as the GULF AID ALL-STARS: New Orleans' own Preservation Hall Jazz Band and Trombone Shorty playing with Lenny Kravitz, Tim Robbins and Mos Def. The song – an updated version of a 1960s New Orleans Mardi Gras standard originally written by Joseph Smokey Johnson (who also recorded the track) and Wardell Joseph Quezergue – features updated lyrics by Mos Def and Preservation Hall's Ben Jaffe.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-hgqMys-Bs]

Thanks Dana!

UncategorizedJack Dysongulf aid, lenny kravitz, mos def, music, new orleans, preservation hall, tim robbinsComment
The Empire strikes back against WikiLeaks

Good article by Alexander Cockburn on The First Post: First Amendment rights trampled - and WikiLeaks is not the only site to be shut down

The WikiLeaks sites have vanished — though more than 1,400 mirror sites still carry the disclosures. Amazon, Visa, MasterCard, PayPal and the organisation’s Swiss bank have shut them down, either on their own initiative or after a threat from the US government or its poodles in London and Geneva. Julian Assange is in a British jail cell, facing a hearing on trumped-up Swedish allegations zealously posted by Interpol.

The US government is warning potential employees not to read the WikiLeaks materials anywhere on the web, and US Attorney General Eric Holder is cooking up a stew of new gag stipulations and fierce statutory penalties against any site carrying material the government deems compromising to state security. Commercial outfits like Amazon are falling over themselves to connive at the shutdowns, actual or threatened.

One of the biggest lessons for us all comes in the form of a wake-up call on the enormous vulnerability of our prime means of communication to swift government-instigated, summary shutdown.

Forty-three years ago, Ramparts magazine published its disclosures of the CIA’s capture of the National Student Association as a front organisation. The magazine became the target of furious denunciation by the Liebermans and McConnells of the day. Even before publication, the CIA’s Desmond FitzGerald authorised a dirty-tricks operation against Ramparts.

But at no time did the government muster the nerve to flout the First Amendment and try to shut the magazine down on grounds that it was compromising “national security” or was guilty of espionage. A courtroom challenge by Ramparts’ lawyers would have been inevitable.

While visiting Britain in the early 1970s, former CIA case officer Philip Agee had a brief meeting with Tony Godwin, editor-in-chief of Penguin Books, a friend of mine. Godwin agreed to publish Agee’s exposé, including the names of active CIA officers and details of their operations.

Agee managed to write the book in Paris, though I warned him that the CIA certainly knew of his plans and would probably try to kill him. They bugged his typewriter and later floated disobliging rumours about his sex life and drinking habits. But no one tried to shove him into the Seine or even put him in a French prison.

Today? At the least, all of Ramparts’ electronic business operations would be closed down. Pressured by the US government, Amazon would deny Penguin all access or ability to sell books. Just look at what has happened to WikiLeaks.

Britain has had its left leaker heroes. In 1963, ‘Spies for Peace’ – a group of direct-action British anarchists and kindred radicals associated with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and Bertrand Russell’s Committee of 100 - broke into a secret government bunker, Regional Seat of Government Number 6 (RSG-6), at Warren Row, near Reading, where they photographed and copied documents, showing secret government preparations for rule after a nuclear war.

They distributed a pamphlet along with copies of relevant documents to the press, stigmatising the “small group of people who have accepted thermo-nuclear war as a probability, and are consciously and carefully planning for it ... They are quietly waiting for the day the bomb drops, for that will be the day they take over.”

There was uproar before the Conservative government of the day issued a D-notice forbidding any further coverage in the press. The cops and intelligence services hunted long and hard for the ‘spies for peace’, and caught nary a one. These days, would the press have been so initially swift to reprint the pamphlet? Would any website reprinting its contents have survived for 24 hours?

So far as the internet is concerned, First Amendment protections here in the US – certainly better than protections in the UK - appear to have no purchase or even acknowledged standing. Even before the WikiLeaks hysteria took hold, the situation was very serious.

As Davey D recently reported on his Hip Hop Corner website, over the Thanksgiving holiday Homeland Security, along with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Justice Department and the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordinating Center, closed more than 80 websites, including popular hip-hop sites RapGodfathers.com, dajaz1.com and Onsmash.com. These sites were accused of copyright violations. No hearing. Alive one minute, dead the next.

So here we have a public “commons” — the internet — subject to arbitrary onslaught by the state and powerful commercial interests, and not even the shadow of constitutional protection.

The situation is getting worse. The net itself is going private. As I write, Google and Facebook are locked in a struggle over which company will control the bulk of the world’s internet traffic. Millions could find that the e-mail addresses they try to communicate with, the sites they want to visit, the ads they may want to run, are all under Google’s or Facebook’s supervision and can be closed off without explanation or redress at any time.

Here in the US certainly, we need a big push on First Amendment protections for the internet: one more battlefield where the left and the libertarians can join forces. But we must do more than buttress the First Amendment. We must also challenge the corporations’ power to determine the structure of the internet and decide who is permitted to use it.

(original article here)

UncategorizedJack Dysonalexander cockburn, wikileaksComment
Hats - what and where

Hats, real hats, are cool again. Problem is, lots of people don't get the etiquette. One spiv at a recent Savile Row gig actually had a Homburg on in the ballroom of the Savoy. This has sent me into a quietly-internalised fury. He didn't even have the decency to touch the brim of it - let alone take it off - when he was introduced to a lady. And yes I might be old-fashioned, but the point is, if you're going to bust out in old school threads and act all entitled, then you should also do you homework and wear them right - as in, with the right attitude and an understanding of how, where and why they came about. SO that's the mini-rant, and it provoked some hatology (a lot of this is from Wikipedia): 1. Homburg A homburg is a felt hat characterized by a single dent running down the center of the crown and a brim fixed in a tight, upwards curl. It is superficially similar to the trilby and fedora; however, those types of hat have soft, snappable brims and can have various designs pinched into the crown, whereas the shape of a homburg is fixed.

The homburg is typically made from wool or fur felt and has a grosgrain hatband and brim treatment with an optional feather. A variant form is the lord's hat", which lacks the edge ribbon, and may, optionally, be pinched.

It was popularized by Edward VII after he visited Bad Homburg in Hesse, Germany, and brought back a hat of this style. Like the trilby or fedora, the homburg was once quite popular and is still available in almost any color, but the most common colors are black, grey, and brown. In Britain a black homburg became widely known in the 1930s as an "Anthony Eden" after the Government Minister of that name.

In formality, the homburg ranks just below the top hat, and above hats such as the bowler or fedora. It is appropriate (often with a topcoat) with a stroller (which is morning dress but with a suit jacket) or with black tie.

2. Trilby Although also used as a synonym for a short-brimmed fedora in the United Kingdom, the trilby is distinguished by a very narrow brim that is sharply turned up in the back and a short crown, which is pinched in the front and indented into a teardrop shape in the center. The hat's name derives from the stage adaptation of George du Maurier's 1894 novel Trilby; a hat of this style was worn in the first London production of the play, and promptly came to be called "a Trilby hat".

Traditionally it was made from rabbit hair felt, but is now sometimes made from other materials, including tweed, straw, and wool. The hat reached its zenith in the 1960s, when it supplanted the wider brimmed fedora; the steadily lowering roofs of previously taller American automobiles made it impractical to wear a hat with a larger brim and tall crown while driving. It faded from popularity in the 1970s when any type of men's headwear became obsolete, and men's fashion instead began focusing on highly maintained hairstyles.

The hat resurged in popularity in the early 2000s, when it was marketed to both men and women in an attempt to capitalize on a retro fashion trend. The hat has remained popular with both sexes into the 2010s, with various manufacturers experimenting with different patterns and emblazoning logos and other designs into the sides of the hat.

The hat has been associated with jazz, ska and soul musicians, as well as members of the indie, rude boy, mod, and 2 Tone subcultures.

A notable wearer of the trilby is Frank Sinatra. Sean Connery wore one in the first five James Bond movies, until changing trends necessitated that the suave character stop wearing a hat, lest he be seen as anachronistic or outdated by young filmgoers.

Bondclothes says: "The example above from Dr. No was dark grey, with the grosgrain band in a slightly lighter grey. In From Russia With Love and Goldfinger he can be seen with a dark brown trilby and goes back to a grey one in Thunderball. Connery can last be seen carrying one in You Only Live Twice. George Lazenby wore a navy blue tribly in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, but his had a wider grosgrain ribbon. Connery wore his with either suits or blazers whilst Lazenby also wore his with a dinner suit and his wedding attire. Roger Moore brought back the trilby in the 1980s though he never actually wore one, only throwing his on the rack when entering the office."

3. Ushanka An ushanka (Literally "ear hat") is a Russian fur cap with ear flaps that can be tied up to the crown of the cap, or tied at the chin to protect the ears, jaw and lower chin from the cold. The thick dense fur also offers some protection against blunt impacts to the head. While no match for a helmet, it offers protection far superior to that of a typical beanie cap should the wearer fall and hit his or her head against ice or packed snow. The word Ushanka derives from ushi (у́ши), "ears" in Russian.

Of course, it's not just Russian - hats with flexible earflaps made out of fur have been known in Russia, Germany and Scandinavia for centuries, not to mention ancient Scythians and various nomads of the Central Asia - but has always been seen as THE Soviet headgear. Soviet Russia. Photographs of US President Gerald Ford wearing the cap during a 1974 visit to the Soviet Union (above) were seen as a possible sign of Détente. In 1991, with the fall of the Soviet Union came the first wave of commercially imported Russian winter hats into the West.

4. Flat cap A Flat Cap, also known as a Sixpence, Scally Cap, Ivy Cap, Irish Cap, Tweed Cap, Salmon Hat, UNION Cap, Dai Cap, Jeff Cap, Windsor Cap, Touring Cap, Driving Cap, or Newspaper Cap, Cheesecutter Cap. It is a rounded men's cap with a small stiff brim in front. Cloths used to make the cap range from wool, tweed (most common) to cotton driving caps for summer wear, sometimes featuring air vents. Less common materials may include leather. Cord flat caps are also worn in various colors. The inside of the cap is usually lined with silk for comfort and warmth.

The style can be traced back to the 14th century in United Kingdom and parts of Italy, when it was more likely to be called a "bonnet". A 1571 Act of Parliament to stimulate domestic wool consumption and general trade decreed that on Sundays and holidays, all males over 6 years of age, except for the nobility and persons of degree, were to wear caps of wool manufacture on force of a fine (3/4d (pence) per day). The Bill was not repealed until 1597, though by this time, the flat cap had become firmly entrenched in English psyche as a recognized mark of a non-noble subject; be it a burgher, a tradesman, or apprentice. The style survives as the Tudor bonnet in some styles of academic dress.

Flat caps were almost universally worn in the 19th century by working class men throughout Britain and Ireland, and versions in finer cloth were also considered to be suitable casual countryside wear for upper-class English men (hence the contemporary alternative name golf cap). Flat caps were worn by fashionable young men in the 1920s.

The stereotype of the flat cap as purely "working class" was never correct. They were frequently worn in the country, but not in town, by middle and upper-class males for their practicality. Mather says: "A cloth cap is assumed in folk mythology to represent working class, but it also denotes upper class affecting casualness. So it is undoubtedly classless, and there lies its strength. A toff can be a bit of a chap as well without, as it were, losing face."

Roll one up and chuck it in your pocket. Keep a few in different colours. Whatever. But don't wear them back to front. Ever.

5. Fedora A fedora is usually felt, creased lengthwise down the crown and pinched in the front on both sides. The creasing does not define the hat, however. Fedoras can also be creased with teardrop crowns, diamond crowns, center dents, and others, and the positioning of pinches can vary if they are found at all. Early on, fedoras were sold open crown, meaning they were uncreased, with the owner creating his/her own crease manually. By the 1950s, hat makers started blocking the various creases into the hats when they were made. This is now the standard. The brim goes all the way around the crown and can be left raw edge, finished with a sewn overwelt or underwelt, bound with grosgrain ribbon, or finished with a self-felted cavanagh edge. Traditionally, fedoras have grosgrain hat bands. A trilby is similar to a fedora, but typically has a narrower brim, and the back of the brim is distinctively more sharply upturned as a result.

You wear them back on your head, with the front brim bent a little forward and shading your eyes. They don't have to be perfect - a little personalisation improves them. A fedora looks good with a trench coat, over a rough suit. Not so much with the whole jeans thing. I have a feeling that Paul McGann wears one in the last scene of Withnail & I.

The term fedora was in use as early as 1891. Originally a women's fashion into the 20th century, the fedora came into use in about 1919 as a men's middle-class clothing accessory. Its popularity soared, and eventually it eclipsed the similar-looking Homburg by the 1920s. The name comes from the title of an 1882 play by Victorien Sardou, Fédora, written for Sarah Bernhardt. The play was first performed in the U.S. in 1889. Bernhardt played Princess Fédora, the heroine of the play, and she wore a hat similar to what is now considered a fedora.

6. Bowler In France they call a bowler hat a "chapeau melon". I actually don't think we're quiiiite ready to have these bad boys back just yet. Bowlers were devised in 1849 by the London hatmakers Thomas and William Bowler to fulfil an order placed by the firm of hatters Lock & Co. of St James's. Lock & Co. had been commissioned by a client (British soldier and politician Edward Coke, the younger brother of the 2nd Earl of Leicester) to design a close-fitting, low-crowned hat to protect his gamekeepers' heads from low-hanging branches while on horseback. The keepers had previously worn top hats, which were easily knocked off and damaged.

When Coke arrived in London on 17 December 1849 to collect his hat, he reportedly placed it on the floor and stamped hard on it twice to test its strength; the hat withstood this test and Coke paid 12 shillings for it. In accordance with Lock & Company's usual practice, the hat was called the "Coke" hat (pronounced “cook”) after the customer who had ordered it. This is most likely why the hat became known as the "Billy Coke" or "Billycock" hat (as well as a "Derby").

The Bowler hat has also been worn by Quechua and Aymara women in Peru and Bolivia since the 1920s, when it was introduced to Bolivia by British railway workers. Another region that appreciates the Bowler hat is the Niger Delta area of Nigeria. The men of this region use this hat as a fashion accessory along with a walking stick. These fashion accessories which have now become a staple part of the regional costume were introduced by British colonials in the 1900s

So: originally a riding hat for gamekeepers which then went from countryside to town.

Bowler bonus: it was the Bowler and not cowboy hats like the Stetson or sombrero that was the most popular hat in the American West, prompting Lucius Beebe to call it "the hat that won the West." Both cowboys and railroad workers preferred the hat because it wouldn't blow off as easily in strong wind, or when sticking one's head from the window of a speeding train. It was worn by both lawmen and outlaws, including Bat Masterson, Butch Cassidy and Billy the Kid.

7. Boater A boater (also basher, skimmer, cady, katie, somer, or sennit hat) is a kind of hat associated with sailing and boating.

It is normally made of sennit straw and has a stiff or soft flat crown and brim, typically with a ribbon around the crown, which is often in colours representing a school, rowing crew or similar institution. Boaters were popular as summer headgear in the late 19th century and early 20th century, and were supposedly worn by FBI agents as a sort of unofficial uniform in the pre-war years. Nowadays they are rarely seen except at sailing or rowing events, period theatrical and musical performances (e.g. barbershop music) or as part of old-fashioned school uniform, such as at Harrow School.

Being made of straw, the boater was and is generally regarded as a warm-weather hat. In the days when men all wore hats when out of doors, "Straw Hat Day", the day when men switched from wearing their winter hats to their summer hats, was seen as a sign of the beginning of summer. The exact date of Straw Hat Day might vary slightly from place to place. For example, in Philadelphia, it was May 15; at the University of Pennsylvania, it was the second Saturday in May.

The boater is a fairly formal hat, equivalent in formality to the Homburg, and so is correctly worn either in its original setting with a blazer, or in the same situations as a Homburg, such as a smart lounge suit, or with black tie. John Jacob Astor IV (above, who built the Astoria and died on the Titanic) was known for wearing such hats.

UncategorizedJack Dysonboater, bowler, etiquette, fashion, fedora, flat cap, hat, hats, homburg, menswear, style, trilbyComment